


akrasia

by l_cloudy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Blood Magic, First Meetings, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-05-17 11:40:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14831601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/l_cloudy/pseuds/l_cloudy
Summary: A summer assignment brings two unlikely young boys together for the first time.





	akrasia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [graveExcitement (arachnids)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arachnids/gifts).



When Eileen Prince had been young, during the Muggle war, she had been sent away from her family house in London to some great uncle’s mansion in Hampshire, with velvet amaranth curtains and marble floors. The house had been beautiful, Eileen had often said, with its rose garden and the bird fountain by her bedroom window, the tall ceiling of the dining room and the dark glass panel covering the long mahogany table. When Severus had been a child, that had been his bedtime story.

Of all the places of her childhood Eileen liked to remember the library best of all, with seemingly endless rows of shelves and the potted plants and cocobolo inlays, and the dozens and dozens of books the old man took such pleasure in. And after the first time he caught Eileen in the library, reading through old tomes of magic too advanced for her age, her uncle had often invited her to sit on a stuffed armchair by his desk, flipping pages mindlessly while he poured over a contract or the other.

Her favourite had been a freshly printed edition of Violet Rosier’s  _Potions of the Night_ , meticulously bound and beautifully illustrated. When the old uncle had died, he’d left Eileen a stash of his books. Some had been lost, to time and to Tobias’s rage, but that one remained intact. As a child, Severus had found himself morbidly fascinated as he traced the images with a trembling finger – this was magic, the most powerful. He could never look away.

He often had to hide as he read, in dark corners, or his bed with a convenient pillow. His mother’s uncle had smiled at her choice of reading materials, even unsuitable as it was for an impressionable young girl. She was Pureblood, after all; there was no dark side of magic she should not know. On the first page, a heavy scrabble read,  _To my darling girl. May you find the knowledge of life_. Sometimes, Severus traced the familiar words with the tip of a finger. Then he snapped the cover shut, closed his eyes, and threw his pillow over his head to muffle the sound of yells.

The book was not the reason behind Severus’s continuous quest for excellence, or his passion for potions and the darker side of magic. But when the summer of his fifth year rolled around, lonely and friendless and restless, he left a renewed urge to know more, to be more, to escape in the only way he could.

And that was how everything started; and Severus of only weeks prior, who’d spent the entire train ride to London fearing the dread of summer and trying his best not to think of Lily - that old Severus would soon realize that, perhaps, something good was just around the corner.

-

It was thirteen days since the end of the term when Severus could successfully organize a Portkey to Hogwarts. The castle was beautiful as usual, made even more so by the haunting emptiness and the resounding echoes of the summer. Severus loved Hogwarts a great deal more than he cared for any of the people living in it, and he always found himself looking forward to exams week, when everyone would be crammed in their common rooms for some frantic last-minute studying, leaving him the undiscussed master of the castle. He would walk through the corridors as if in a dream, stepping on every single golden pond of light streaming from the windows, fearless as he’d always wanted to be.

This time around, he saw nothing but the interior of Headmaster Dumbledore’s office. He was waiting for him, ready to offer Severus a steadying arm when he materialized in the middle of the room, looking pleased as always and almost intrigued, with a gleam in his blue eyes he usually reserved for his more favoured students. Potter was one of those, Severus thought, maybe not wholly without bitterness. He swallowed. He would’ve preferred doing this with Slughorn.

“Mister Snape,” his voice was warm. “A pleasure as always. I trust you’re well?”

Severus nodded at him. “Sir,” he said. “I’m good. How do you do?”

He chuckled. “As well as it’s to be expected. Please, Mister Snape, sit down.”

He did so, looking around. The Headmaster’s office looked just as cosy and disordered as it had been during his last visit, a few months ago – it had been a less pleasant occasion, and even the Headmaster’s office had been equally messy, with colourful woollen cloths and curious trinkets everywhere.

“So, Mister Snape,” Dumbledore started. “You received your O.W.L. results this morning, didn’t you? Went well, I hope?”

Severus allowed himself to smile. Ten O.W.L.s., and eight ‘O’ at that – though his Charms score had been borderline ‘E’ and he had probably only got it because of his classmates’ own mediocrity, it was an Outstanding all the same. Indeed, he could say his exams had gone well.

“Yes, thank you,” he said. Then, “Has Professor Slughorn told you… about my request?”

Dumbledore nodded, seemingly interested. “He has. He recommended you.”

Severus allowed himself to smile. He had seen the new Hogwarts course catalogue during his customary book shopping trip to Diagon Alley one year ago, but summer had been over then, and his chance to ask had come only after his OWLs. Hogwarts, it turned out, offered a summer apprenticeship in Alchemy and Magical Theory, with potionist and renewed magical theorist Dame Violet Rosier. Three times a week, with portkey transfers provided. His father would sign the permission form; he signed anything Severus put in front of him. As a child, it had hurt that he didn't seem to care. Now he knew better.

Severus leaned in. “Does that mean I can do it?”

Dumbledore’s look had turned amused, and as if he were truly taking notice of him for the first time. Which… wasn’t probably far from the truth, all things considered. Not many people outside of Slytherin took any interest in Severus Snape – outside the classroom, anyway – and those who did usually were not kind.

“Well, Mister Snape,” he said. “Today, you’re going to meet the instructor. Next time, your lessons will start. I should warn you, however -”

“I can take the load,” Severus cut in. “It’s the summer holidays. And I’ve done most of my homework already…” Anything to pass the time.

“Oh, no,” Professor Dumbledore said. “The load is not the problem. It’s the instructor, you see – Dame Violent, she can be… quite particular.”

 _Particular_. It wasn’t really a word someone like Professor Dumbledore could afford to throw at anyone unless it would turn out to be someone magnitudes more eccentric than Dumbledore himself was. And in that case, Severus thought, the world might not survive it.

“Particular… how?” he asked. Dumbledore gave a little shrug.

“Oh, she’s rather imaginative. You’ll see.”

Severus cleared his throat. “Alright,” he said. “Could I meet Dame Rosier?”

Dumbledore eyed him critically. “Very well, Mister Snape,” he agreed. “I’ll tell her we are coming.”

And then he stood up and walked away, presumably to the door to his quarters, leaving Severus to stare at the piles of books on the desk. A large leather-bound copy of _Intermediate Healing Arts_  was the base for a rather precarious-looking stockpile that included such titles as  _Goblin Rites of Passage_ ,  _The Sixteenth Century in Wizarding History_ ,  _Public Law of the Danish Magical Community_  and, strangely enough, Jane Austen.

Five minutes passed, then ten. Severus kept staring at the well-worn copy of  _Emma_  – were there notes sticking from inside the pages? Did Dumbledore have a fondness for Muggle literature? He was reasonably certain that Jane Austen had not been a witch. Reading Muggle books seemed like something Dumbledore would so. Severus resolved to look into which famous men and women of letters had been secretly part of the magical world. Not Shakespeare, whom no one at Hogwarts seemed to know besides Lily, but Keats for sure…

“Ah, Mister Snape,” Dumbledore called out. “All done. Sorry for the wait.”

Severus turned to meet the professor’s warm smile. “Oh, it was nothing,” he said. “I should be the one thanking you, sir.”

“Nonsense,” he said, waving around. “Now, on to us – it’s a good thing we arranged this meeting for the morning, Mister Snape, because it turns out Dame Rosier has a portkey to Germany at midday. She is unpredictable like that. She is amenable to a conversation as long as I, and I quote, bring to her the young man as soon as possible.”

He almost scoffed, drawing yet another amused look from Dumbledore. That caused a glance of his own, and he found himself biting on his lip as he tried to make sense of the man’s new behaviour. Severus had tried to win Dumbledore’s respect through five years of flawless classwork, and utterly failing. He hadn’t even made Prefect his fifth year, despite his perfect marks and strict adherence to the rules – in favour of Nick Wilkes of all people, and that still hurt – and now he kept looking at him as if he was being appraised.

He shook his head, trying to drive the nerves away. There was nothing to be done there, he decided and stood up to follow Dumbledore outside his office and down the stairs.

“Thinking, Mister Snape?”

He’d turned to look at him, and Severus nodded. “Yes, sir. About the meeting.” And about next year’s classes, and many more things.

They were now close to the dungeons, to the Slytherin common room and Professor Slughorn’s office. Severus had never seen any of these classrooms in use, and he found himself walking faster, intrigued.

“Where are we going, Professor?” he asked.

“Oh, we’re almost there.”

He led him to a corridor fight by the Potion classroom, where one single door had a sliver of light filtering through the door. Dumbledore knocked briefly and went in; Severus followed.

It was very hot. The room had nothing of the usual dampness he usually associated with the dungeons, probably because of the three small fires seemingly hovering in mid-air, burning each in a different shade of red. Above the closest flame was a rather large glass cruet – not a cauldron, and he wondered why that was – and the liquid boiling inside was thick and dark. It didn’t look like any potion Severus had ever seen, and that alone had him intrigued.

“Ah, Violet,” Dumbledore called out, and that was when Severus noticed the woman leaning on the wall, staring intently at one of the floating fires. “Here you are.”

She raised his head to look at them – to look at Dumbledore, mostly, and Severus was glad for the split second of reprieve it granted him so that he would not be caught staring.

Dame Violet was nothing like he had imagined from reading his mother’s book – very tall, for one, with silvery white hair that went down her back tied in a thick braid, and a heavy unlined face. She was dressed very sharply. Next to her, Dumbledore looked like a nutty uncle with his greying mane and flowing vermilion robes.

For another thing, Dame Violet looked...  _kind_. It was deceptive; it had to - this was the woman who’d created seven different potions based on human blood within a year of working as a mediwitch. Still, there was something disarming in the warmth note in her brown eyes as gradually took them in.

Dumbledore waved him forward. “Violet,” he began, “this is Severus Snape, about to start his sixth year.” To Severus, he smiled. “Mister Snape, this is Violent Rosier, an esteemed colleague.”

“Mister Snape,” she said. Her grip was very firm. “I’ve heard about you. I would be open to teaching you… whatever can be taught, anyway.” She seemed to chuckle, sharing a private laughter with herself.

“Thank you,” Severus said. He swallowed. “I’d like that.”

“You are a Slytherin, right?" Dame Violet asked. "What a coincidence. So is my other student.”

That surprised him. “Your other student?”

Her smile was very sharp. “I see Albus hasn’t told you. He’s in the other room. Go on, go meet him. You’ll be working together, after all.” And then, “Albus come here, I need you to see this.”

He’d been effectively dismissed.  _Particular_ , Dumbledore had said. He threw a look over his shoulder. “Sir?”

“Go on,” Dumbledore said. “Just come by my office when you need to leave.”

Slowly, Severus walked to the end of the room and pushed on the small door that he’d first assumed would lead to a cupboard. The door slid back without a sound.

He found himself in a space that must be magically enlarged. The room was very wide, with a big fireplace – burning, he noticed, even though it was mid-morning and it was July – and large windows bathing the room in golden light that certainly was not from the sun.

There was a thick carpet on the floor and a desk carved with the same abstract motifs as the door, big and expensive, of a wood dark enough to look almost black; and shelves upon shelves of books on the walls. Very few of the books had titles on their spines that Severus could see.

Sitting on the carpet there was a boy. He was pale and slim, with curly black hair of the sort that witches would get in beauty salons, wearing robes of black and silver. “I know you,” he said. “You’re in my House.”

His voice was low and surprisingly poised. It sounded like it should belong to a young man out of school, not a gangly teenager. Severus looked down to meet intense grey eyes, trying to place him.

“You’re Sirius Black’s brother,” he realised. “Right?”

Black’s brother. For a moment Severus considered turning on his heels and walking away. Black’s brother, who would probably be just as much of a prick, would have heard all of Black’s boisterous stories, would have-

But then the boy nodded, and he smiled. “My name is Regulus,” he said. “You’re in my brother’s year, right?”

No derision, no taunts. Severus nodded slowly. “My name is Severus.”

Regulus nodded again, and with a gesture of his wand, he summoned a stuffed chair over to the fireplace for him to sit on. Very advanced, for a wizard who wasn’t even in fifth year. The fire was burning, and Severus quickly found himself sweating. He took off his outer robe and draped it around the back of the chair. Regulus’s sleeves, he noticed, were rolled up.

“Violet is an old friend of my Uncle Alphard,” Regulus said before Severus could even ask. “They met in Norway forever ago. Well, they met as children - you know the Rosiers, she’s a cousin from Wales - but they went on an expedition together with Scamander’s wife, and they kept in touch, and I really like her Alchemy studies and the spells she’s created. But I was too young for her to take me on until now.”  

“And what about you, Severus?” It was an unexpected pleasure, Severus found, to hear his first name come out of someone’s mouth, someone besides his mother. “How did you end up here?”

After Regulus’s stream of words, he wasn’t sure what he could say. “Nothing much,” he answered. “I read the course catalogue.”

“But how’d you know Violet?”

“I don’t,” Severus said. “I asked Professor Slughorn… and he told Dumbledore, I assume. Dumbledore spoke to Dame Rosier.”

“Really?” Regulus said. “I wanted to ask you how you’d managed to talk Violent into taking you in. She hardly accepts anyone - and I mean,  _anyone_. I know this year she refused two other students, and my uncle had to ask her for years before she even gave me an interview. She made me brew two potions. She picked them from the textbook. It was  _boring_.”

He sounded indignant as he said that, and Severus almost wanted to laugh. Then he remembered what Regulus had said. “She didn’t give me an interview, I… I thought today was the interview.” Dumbledore had said Slughorn had recommended him. Severus hadn’t thought to ask what that might entail.

Then he frowned. “Wait,” she asked. “You call Dame Rosier ‘Violet’?”

Regulus laughed.

“Don’t call Violet ‘Dame Rosier’, Severus,” he advised. “Honestly. She says it makes her feel old. And…” he paused, seemingly struggling to find the right words. “This is not like going to classes. We’re not here to do homework. Think of it as… being with friends.”

 _Friends_. That wasn’t a word Severus was accustomed to hearing often. He’d only had one friend his entire life, and that had gone… badly, in the end. It still hurt. Still, he tried to picture it, rolling the word around his tongue.

“Friends,” he repeated, slowly. Still, he frowned. All of this, this strange day and this strange boy, had been entirely unexpected. “I didn’t think things would be so…” he struggled to find the words. “Informal?”

Regulus laughed, and Severus could see the resemblance with his brother. “I bet you’re a very proper sort of person, aren’t you?”

It wasn’t said cruelly. It was also something no one had ever told Severus. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Maybe?”

“Oh, ignore me,” Regulus said. “I talk a lot. But I have known Violet for years - she’s demanding, but friendly.” He smiled a mischievous sort of smile. “We’ll have a good time.”

Severus held Regulus’s eyes for a second more, then nodded. “I’m glad.”

Dame Violet came into the room not long after, carrying two books under her left arm and looking supremely unconcerned that she had left some strange potion to boil by itself in the next room. The edge of her fashionable robe had risen up as she walked, and Severus saw that she was wearing Muggle-style laced shoes, off-white and dirtied with dust.

“Good morning, again,” she said. Regulus stood up from his lazy sprawl; likewise, Severus sat up from his spot in the chair. “You’ve introduced to each other, I hope. Severus will be joining us from now on.”

It struck him then that perhaps she’d come in late on purpose, to give him time to get acquainted with Regulus Black - had she guessed that they would talk about her, what they would say?

“Regulus, why don’t you show him what I was telling you about earlier.”

Severus looked up at her. She had taken off her heavy robe and walked up to join them, standing close, and suddenly the room was so quiet that Severus could distinctly hear the crackling of the burning wood in the fireplace, the wind howling outside the glass windows, even though they were underground.

He shifted in his seat.

“Alright,” Regulus said, abruptly. “Severus, look at this.”

Then he took out his wand – Severus perked up at the sight – and cast a Summoning spell towards one of the shelves on the opposite side of the room. It was done in a low mutter, but almost effortlessly, and he watched interested as a small flash, a delicate-looking crystal cup and a silver knife came flying to the carpet at Regulus’s feet. He took the knife in hand but let the bowl where it was, smiling all the while.

Then, in one long fluid motion, cut a gash along his arm.

Severus choked, jumping to his feet.

“What the –” Dame Violet, of course, didn’t look minimally surprised. Severus closed his mouth, glancing around the room and meeting two different amused stares. Dame Violet held his gaze firmly, eyebrows raised; Regulus looked close to snickering.

 _Dumbledore was right,_ he thought _, she’s insane._

“Severus, please sit down,” Dame Violet said. “I hope you can forgive some good-natured theatricality.”

He sat down slowly, hands clenching at his sides. Down on the floor, small drops of Regulus’s blood were still gushing from the shallow cut in his arm into the cup.

“I’m sorry!” Regulus blurted out, looking at Severus. “It was just –”

“I’ve been waiting since you came in here to see your face,” Regulus admitted. “I never get to impress anyone, the chance was just too good to pass out.”

“Do I look impressed?” he asked, in a tone that was meant to be accusing but mostly came out as choked, and far too surprised for his liking. His eyes found Dame Violet, who had barely said anything. Potions based on human blood, he remembered. Not Dark Magic - Dumbledore would never have tolerated her had that been the case - but unprecedented originality, and very little scruples.

“What are you  _doing_ , anyway?”

“Regulus, I believe that’s enough,” Dame Violet cut in. “Tell me, why did you not tell Severus what we’ve been doing today?”

“To be fair,” Regulus grinned, all teeth and wide smile. “He didn’t ask.” The look he sent Severus’s direction, though, softened the impact of the words. It was surprising how much difference there was between a cruel taunt and this - banter.

“You can tell him now,” Dame Violet suggested. what this –” he made a gesture towards Regulus’s now perfectly-healed arm, “–is about.”

Severus stared in fascination as Regulus used a handkerchief to wipe out some red traces from the area where the wound had been. It was completely gone; the only sign anything had happened at all was the pale tinge of his face, that immediately began to fade as soon as he started drinking whatever potion had been in the flash. Then, he cleared his throat.

“We had been reviewing blood wards,” Regulus began. “To create a potion that could be as effective as a First Level Ward, without those… bonds.”

Severus listened eagerly. Defence was his favourite subject by far, and by far his personal best; he remembered courting Slughorn for a permission slip to the Restricted Section, to learn about blood magic. It was unsurprising that a son of the House of Black should be familiar with the topic, but the way Regulus spoke, hesitating lightly and turning to look to Dame Violet as if for approval, was oddly endearing.

“Fresh blood is the essential element to the creation of First Level Wards,” Regulus was saying. “One of the four types of warding spells commonly called Blood Wards. A basic blood ward draws its power from a living human being, and the area that can be protected is limited in size, depending on,” he paused. “The blood supply.”

“The ward is easy to conjure and maintain, of course, but not much effective against complex spells, especially those that feed on emotion.” He paused, once again glancing at Dame Violet for approval. “And, it will only hold as long as the donor is still alive, and some trace of the symbols remains.”

“Good, Regulus,” he conceded. He smiled under her gaze.

“Severus,” Dame Violet asked. “Are you familiar with this?”

He had to shake his head. “Not much,” he had to admit. “I read much on warding spells, and I know how to break a First Level Ward, but not how to build one.”

She nodded slowly. “I’ll give you some titles to look up,” she said. “We’ll be doing quite a bit of it in the future. I expect you to finish all your reading by the end of the week. Regulus, tell me,” she’d turned away again. What does the strength of a blood ward depend on?”

“The accuracy of the symbols at the moment of the casting,” Regulus answered promptly.

“As well as the intention to protect of whoever is sustaining the ward after it’s anchored – unless it was a human sacrifice that gave the blood, in which case the donor is already dead and intention won’t matter. That is the only case in which hostile blood might be used for protection in a Blood Ward.”

“And, sadly, I couldn’t find anyone to kill in time for this afternoon,” Dame Violet cut in, giving a look around the room. “Believe me, I’ve looked. We will have to make do with Regulus instead –”

“You will be working together,” Dame Violet explained. “We will brew the new potion, eventually, but for now you’ll have to make do with the usual way.”

And so Regulus and Severus took turn learning to draw the surprisingly intricate protection symbol, using the tips of their wands to trace faint lines, barely there, in blood. Then Dame Violet told them to fight: they were to cast a spell, then duel the other across the wards. The trick was to find out in the shortest possible time which spells would break through the low-level ward, and use them to destroy the anchor before attacking.

“If this was real,” Regulus said, after ten minutes of botched tries and Severus occasionally scorching the floor, in what turned out to be one of the few methods that are cost-effective. Rapine was much better. “I could have hit you almost five times over, and that ward would be gone by now.”

“If this was real,” Severus heard himself say, feeling strangely combative. “You would find I know more spells than you do.” Was this how a Quidditch player would feel, flying up there? It was a good feeling.

He looked at the scene in front of him, thinking. They had moved to the back of the classroom to reveal more magically enlarged space, more than big enough to fight a duel in. Severus, as standing on what was left of the elaborate Shield Knot it’d taken so long for him to trace, face-to-face with Regulus. Away in the corner, with Dame Violet more than twenty paces away. Regulus’s symbol, he noticed, was a bit less damaged; his ward a bit stronger. The Blacks knew a surprising amount of odd hexes Severus had never even heard of, and he’d been making good progress.

Still, all the spells that had been used so far were very localized. It was time to change that.

“ _Incendio!_ ” he cast, waving his hand in a circular motion to conjure a tight ring of fire, willing it to burn hotter and hotter as it moved to engulf the invisible barrier, red flames turning a clear orange and then a pale white…

Regulus called out something as he flickered his wand and the fire disappeared as the room filled with vapour, thick and foggy. It was hard to see through the haze, but Severus could still catch a few glimpses of his opponent, sweaty and red-faced. The flames hadn’t made it past the wards, but the heat must have. He glanced down at the floor and saw that the anchor symbol was now completely dry, a dusty red against the pale stone.

 _That’s it_ , he thought. His repertoire might not be half as impressive as the one he would be using during a real fight, but he did know a spell guaranteed to get through.

Severus raised his wand. “ _Expecto Patronum.”_

The flowing grey mist remained shapeless, just as he’d been expecting, but it didn’t seem to matter – it ripped through the ward as if it weren’t even there, and he quickly followed it up with a blasting hex and a wind charm, destroying the anchor entirely before the defences had time to repair. Regulus was thrown down on the floor, his protection completely gone, and Severus smiled triumphantly.

“That was good,” Dame Violet told him, nodding slowly. “Although I suspect Regulus was hoping you would succeed, at least subconsciously, or an incorporeal Patronus wouldn’t have worked as well as it did. It was good practise.”

“Hopefully,” she went on, looking to Severus as she spoke, “it was interesting enough to keep you intrigued about what exactly I am going to teach you. You’ll see,” Dame Violet said. “But not today. I have a portkey to Germany in about thirty minutes. I’m afraid you two young men must be going.”

Not for the first time today, Severus was reminded that even Albus Dumbledore had called Violet Rosier ‘particular’. She closed the door behind their shoulders, and Severus found himself alone in a dungeon corridor with Regulus Black.

“She travels like that often,” Regulus was saying. “Denmark. Greece. Next time, we might even get to go with her.” And then, “Where will you be going now?”

Severus was taken aback. In all of this, he’d almost forgotten that soon he would need to go back home, to Spinner’s End and his too-hot, too-small room. The thought wasn’t exactly welcome, but not as suffocating as it would have been just that morning. He would get to leave again, soon enough, to learn how to brew potions to make blood wards and whatever new trick Dame Violet would come up with. And Regulus – he found, with some surprise, that he  _liked_  Regulus. He liked the thought of sharing his stolen summer with another boy, and he thought he would like Regulus’s company. It was an unexpected realization, but it felt good.

Regulus, he realized, was looking at him, still waiting for an answer. “Portkey,” he said, “in Dumbledore’s office.” And then, “What about you?”

“My uncle.” Regulus shrugged. “He’ll come get me soon enough. I’ll walk you to the Tower.” He said that enthusiastically as if there was nothing better he could think of doing with his time. He was smiling, and Severus found himself almost smiling back.

On their way to the Headmaster’s Tower Regulus kept talking, open and loud, about all the things they might do during the summer, all they would see. There was something about him that was not unlike the warmth of the sun shining in the sky outside, and Severus found himself content just keeping up as they walked, and listening with a renewed sense of wonder.

Then, halfway through a narrow staircase, Regulus turned to look at him from over his shoulder. He cleared his throat. “That was a good attempt at a Patronus, by the way,” he said. “I can’t even begin to summon one. I’d never seen… I liked it,” Regulus said, almost admiring. “Perhaps you should teach me.”

And he smiled again, quick and bright, and Severus smiled back.


End file.
